High time to review massive pay cuts for pilots of Air India and its subsidiaries

New Delhi : Air India pilots have sought a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, stating that it is high time to review the massive pay cut for the pilots of Air India and its subsidiaries.

The Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association and the Indian Pilots’ Guild have written to the Civil Aviation Minister, saying: “Many of our member pilots have informed us of the immense stress they are under as they struggle to meet the needs of their children’s education or ailing elderly parents. This huge discriminatory pay cut has become unsustainable for us.”

“It is high time to review the massive pay cut for the pilots of Air India and its subsidiaries.

“In light of the above as well as our previous meetings, we request you to kindly grant us an urgent meeting at the earliest possible time. You are our singular hope in reversing this victimisation,” they said in the letter.

The pilots said that the Indian aviation scenario is decidedly showing an upward trend, and other private carriers have started scaling back the Covid austerity pay cuts for their pilots. Their recovery is generously helped by preferential treatment in terms of the number of flights allotted to them vis-a-vis Air India. This has also manifested in substantially increased load factors and therefore revenue generation for private carriers, they said.

“We, the pilots of Air India, are already under torment by way of an illegal 25 per cent pay cut for more than five years. In addition to this, the recent pay cut of 60 per cent for pilots from April 2020 as well as a drastic reduction in flying vis-a-vis private carriers has greatly diminished our livelihoods,” they said.